Spending Habits And Divorce

A lot has been mentioned of the high divorce rate for black marriages and it has been shown that money is the leading cause of today's divorces. With black men and women typically making less money than their white counterparts, one might deduce that this very factor makes finance influenced divorce more prevalent among blacks. But there is another factor, that being financial habits. A recent study gives a startling revelation about the financial circumstances of single black women:

"Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5."

"Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5."

Now the disparities in income level between black women and white women are not even remotely as great as the disparity in median wealth between the two groups. Single white women don't come close to making twice the money single black women make, yet single white women seem to possess 8,520 times the median wealth of single black women. From the same study:

"Married or cohabitating white women have a median wealth of $167,500. Married or cohabitating black women have a median net worth of $31,500."

So when black women get married or live with men (predominantly black men), their median wealth becomes 5.3 times less than the median wealth of married or cohabitating white women. Quite a difference from 8,520. Seems that the greater frugality of their husbands make a world of difference. So how do black men do with regard to median wealth? Let's see:

"Excluding vehicles, [working age] single black women have a median wealth of $100 and Hispanic women $120 respectively, while their same-race male counterparts have $7,900 and $9,730. The median wealth of single white women is $41,500. To put it another way, single black and Hispanic women have one penny of wealth for every dollar of wealth owned by their male counterparts and a tiny fraction of a penny for every dollar of
wealth owned by white women."

"With so little in reserve, half of all single black and Hispanic women could not afford to take an unpaid sick day or to even have a major appliance repaired without going into debt."

So while black men seemingly are not doing great with regard to holding on to personal wealth, they are doing far better than black women. Even looking at the chart on the page, black men with children of any age have a median net worth of $26,000 compared to $100 for similar black women. Black men with children under the age of 18 have a median net worth of $10,960 compared to a median net worth of $0 for similar black women.

Of course, the claim will be that black women are overburdened with single motherhood, yet the fact is that there are 13 million single black women overall and 3.1 million single black mothers. Single black mothers, at less than 25% of all single black women, should not have such an extreme effect on the overall median net wealth of all single black women. So what is the reason? Here is a hint:

Almost seven in 10 (68 percent) Black women say that they buy what they really want ˜ in good times or bad. And many Black women face the temptation of unplanned spending when they are feeling stressed - nearly 40 percent report that they shop to cheer themselves up.

Two in five Black women feel guilty about how much they spend on expensive brands.

"For some Black women, excessive spending makes the road to long-term financial security even longer," Mims said. "To an extraordinary degree, Black women consider themselves trendsetters and centers of influence. Opinion-leading has its price."

As anyone knows, when a woman marries, she expects her husband to contribute to her spending habits. A woman who tends to spend money that she doesn't have will similarly expect her husband to spend money that he doesn't have. This is, in all likelihood where the "gold digger" stereotype came from. It's a misnomer. Black women are not any more likely to be gold diggers than any other group of women are are possibly less likely to be. What is prevalent is the tendency to demand excess expenditure from their men; excess being that which can't be afforded. Whether black women's men make 20 grand a year or 200 grand a year, quite often those men are expected to invest nearly all of it toward their women's desires. This inevitably causes conflict and contributes to the high divorce rate.

Demanding Love and Commitment

In 1981, Jennifer Holiday demanded that "you're gonna love me" and "I'm not going" in the the Broadway musical, Dreamgirls. Later on, Beyoncé asserted that "if you want it then you should have put a ring on it". Does it not seem that in modern times, a man's love, dedication, commitment, etc. are all things that women demand or are things women challenge men to do? Has the art of winning a man's heart been totally lost?

More commonly today and to an an even more exaggerated extend within the black community, there seems to be great priority in snagging men through pressure. Men are expected to yield to the pressure to marry women they impregnate even if those women have won no more feelings from these men than sexual arousal. Men are supposed to marry women because women "deserve" to be married or because men are obligated to marry them. Men are supposed to marry women even if doing so sacrifices their happiness and emotional well being. Many women feel that they must force men to respect them as opposed to winning men's respect. They feel that they must force men to accept responsibility as opposed to helping create an environment that inspires men to accept responsibility.

Today, men are no longer the kings of their castles. They generally don't even share the rule. Women rule the nest nowadays even when a man is in the house and they don't rule it based on being deserving, but rather by fighting a battle that their men overwhelmingly cannot win. Men hate to argue with their women, especially with the irrational way that women fight and argue. Such arguing and discourse is stressful for men while women seem to strive on it. So men give in and become resentful. Such resentment manifests in the passive aggressive ways so many women complain about and prompts men to keep their eyes open for ways out as soon as something they feel is better comes along.

Back in the day, women were socialized early on to be good wives. When a guy impregnated a woman, he could be reasonably confident she would make a decent wife. Nowadays, a man has no idea what he will get. Pleasing a man is currently low priority for women and often seen as demeaning. Men are viewed by women as unemotional creatures who are available to be verbally and physical beat up at a whim, yet when men allow such abuse, the women lose respect for them. So a man has a choice of being looked down on by his woman or fighting her to a degree that endangers the relationship. It's a lose-lose situation. Men are more and more avoiding such nonsense and women, in common irrational form, can't see this for the world and routinely accuse men of being immature and non-committing.

Black women, specifically, seem to have larger egos than other women; egos that are almost male-like. Such egos make any type of submission to their men or any type of catering to their men's egos out of the question while these same black female egos are satisfied when they demean their men. It is not uncommon for black men to be cursed out by their women even when not deserving of it. If a black man complains, he is asked to "man-up" and take it, yet if he takes in in stride, he is viewed as a punk. Making a suggestion to a black woman is commonly interpreted as telling her what to do and often results in a firm "nigga, shut up". Hell raising is a common response by black women to anything they disagree with. Black men are not supposed to have any feelings, any needs, any desires, opinions, wants, etc. in a relationship unless they are thugs or players. Thugs and players are treated like kings, yet rarely make good husbands and fathers.

Winning a man's heart should be first priority. Not trapping him with pregnancy. Not throwing the coochie at him from the jump. Not starting the relationship by throwing your kids off on him under the guise of a packaged deal. You should inspire him to love you through sweetness and supporting his efforts to be a man. Show him that when he comes home to you, he will come home to comfort. In a world of 5 billion, the only importance a man has is the importance he has within his own home. Support him building his own personal castle and he will love, protect and provide for you till the end. Leave the male-like egos behind. They are quite unappealing.

Black Women and HIV. Stop Blaming The Brothas.

In a world where men are generally held responsible for the actions of women and where this is taken to another level by the so called “black female empowerment bloggers” as it relates to black men, it has been very much noted that black men are blamed for the high rate of HIV infections in black women. Fuel is added by research indicating that most HIV infected black women were infected by heterosexual contact. By looking at it simplistically, it would seem that black men are the culprits, yet looking at it a little deeper shows a slightly different story.

First of all, it has been established through research that only 3% of HIV positive black women can attribute their infection to sexual contact a man who had sex with another man. This makes sense since studies indicate that only around 3% of black men are homosexual or bisexual, homosexual men of all races tend to be exclusively intimate with men once they come out of the closet and so-called “down-low” men usually don’t have multiple female partners (they tend to have one lady and multiple men). Thus, the vast majority of black women never have sex with men who have had sex with other men.

So eliminating gay or bisexual black men, we can see according to this chart that there were 7,340 new cases of HIV infections among black women in 2009 compared to 3,290 new cases for heterosexual black men during the same year. And since lesbian contact accounts for such a minuscule number of infections as to not even register, practically all of these women infected by sexual contact are heterosexual or bisexual. Hence, we can see that there are at least twice as many heterosexual black women being infected by HIV as there are heterosexual black men even when the three percent of black women infected by men who have sex with other men are eliminated from the group.

So what this shows is that a heterosexual black man through random chance is at least twice as likely as a heterosexual black women to have sexual contact with a member of the opposite sex who is HIV positive. Even if we consider those who are infected by intravenous drug use, the number of black men being infected in such a way is fairly similar to the number of black women being infected that way. At face value, this would seem that black women are more of a danger to black men than the reverse as it relates to spreading HIV, but we will be honest and not go there because the disease is spread much more easily from man to woman than from woman to man. This would account for the greater number of heterosexual black women infected than heterosexual black men.

But studies indicate that black women are infected with HIV at 21 times the rate of white women while black men are infected at 7 times the rate of white men. So why are black women not infected at 7 times the rate of white women as black men are compared to white men? Why are black men not infected at 21 times the rate of white men as black women are compared to white women? Why the discrepancy? Here is my theory.

Black women have a greater tendency than other women to seek intimacy with the very type of men who partake in more risky behavior. Those would be your thugs, hoodlums, pimps, players, etc. These are the very men most prone to having high numbers of sexual partners, least likely to use protection and most likely to partake in drug use. It is this tendency, in my opinion, for the bulk of black women to seek out the smaller number of 'bad boy' alpha males and their willingness to share these males as opposed to seeking one on one relationships with more stable, conservative males that contributes to the excessive infection rate prevalent among black women today.

Signs of Regression

Pretty much most, if not all, of the pathologies prevalent in black America are present in other cultures, though often to a noticeably lower level. So basically, explanations as to why we are seeing certain negative trends in overall society, not only can be applied to black America, but black America is often a more extreme example of such negative social trends. This brings me to an interesting blog post I was linked to. It gives an interesting look at the nature of modern trends in marriage and relationships. Here is an excerp:

The Primal Nature of Men and Women : Genetic research has shown that before the modern era, 80% of women managed to reproduce, but only 40% of men did. The obvious conclusion from this is that a few top men had multiple wives, while the bottom 60% had no mating prospects at all. Women clearly did not mind sharing the top man with multiple other women, ultimately deciding that being one of four women sharing an 'alpha' was still more preferable than having the undivided attention of a 'beta'. Let us define the top 20% of men as measured by their attractiveness to women, as 'alpha' males while the middle 60% of men will be called 'beta' males. The bottom 20% are not meaningful in this context.

Research across gorillas, chimpanzees, and primitive human tribes shows that men are promiscuous and polygamous. This is no surprise to a modern reader, but the research further shows that women are not monogamous, as is popularly assumed, but hypergamous. In other words, a woman may be attracted to only one man at any given time, but as the status and fortune of various men fluctuates, a woman's attention may shift from a declining man to an ascendant man. There is significant turnover in the ranks of alpha males

As a result, women are the first to want into a monogamous relationship, and the first to want out. This is neither right nor wrong, merely natural. What is wrong, however, is the cultural and societal pressure to shame men into committing to marriage under the pretense that they are 'afraid of commitment', while there is no longer the corresponding traditional shame that was reserved for women who destroyed the marriage, despite the fact that 90% of divorces are initiated by women. Furthermore, when women destroy the commitment, there is great harm to children, and the woman demands present and future payments from the man she is abandoning. A man who refuses to marry is neither harming innocent minors nor expecting years of payments from the woman. This double standard has invisible but major costs to society.

To provide 'beta' men an incentive to produce far more economic output than needed just to support themselves while simultaneously controlling the hypergamy of women that would deprive children of interaction with their biological fathers, all major religions constructed an institution to force constructive conduct out of both genders while penalizing the natural primate tendencies of each. This institution was known as 'marriage'. Societies that enforced monogamous marriage made sure all beta men had wives, and thus unlocking productive output out of these men who in pre-modern times would have had no incentive to be productive. Women, in turn, received a provider, a protector, and higher social status than unmarried women, who often were trapped in poverty. When applied over an entire population of humans, this system was known as 'civilization'.

All societies that achieved great advances and lasted for multiple centuries followed this formula with very little deviation. Societies that deviated from this were quickly replaced. This 'contract' between the sexes was advantageous to beta men, women over the age of 35, and children, but greatly curbed the activities of alpha men and women under 35 (together, a much smaller group than the former one). Conversely, the pre-civilized norm of alpha men monopolizing 3 or more young women each, replacing aging ones with new ones, while the masses of beta men fight over a tiny supply of surplus/aging women, was chaotic and unstable, leaving beta men violent and unproductive, and aging mothers discarded by their alpha mates now vulnerable to poverty. So what happens when the traditional controls of civilization are lifted from both men and women?

The writer then goes on to show modern trends that lift such traditional controls. With the history of black men being deprived of their authority and financial abilities by past racism, it is clear why such traditional controls have been lifted from black men and women to a greater level.

It appears that the chasing of alpha males is more prevalent among black women and this contributes greatly to the modern state of the black family. It helps create a high percentage of out-of-wedlock births, a high divorce rate and a high single rate. Our young boys are overwhelmingly being raised without fatherly influence and we are seeing the results today. A minority of black men seem to father a disproportionate number of our children and these very men are least likely to commit and/or be active fathers.

I would recommend reading the rest of the article and clicking on its links. Very interesting stuff.

"Men Are Supposed To Be The Leaders"

This is a statement commonly made by the so-called "black woman empowerment bloggers" and "black woman interracial bloggers". It's not really stated because they actually believe this or consciously desire this to be the case. They make this statement for the purpose of chastising black men and to take away black female responsibility for contributing to the problems of black America. To understand the inherent problem with their repeated use of this statement, one must understand that which is necessary for leadership along with the various types of leadership.

For anyone to lead, there must be those who submit to be led. With regard to submitting to male leadership and authority, there is typically more resistance from African American woman than probably any other group of women. This is added to the overall modern trend of women less and less accepting male leadership and authority and the common obstinate behavior of black American women. Now one must understand that there are three basic types of authority:

1. Legal Authority: This type of authority with regard to gender is practically non-existent in American society due to modern laws not granting authority to men. Thus, black men have no legal authority over black women.

2. Traditional Authority: The history of black men in this nation being deprived of so much authority has made male leadership in black America less the tradition than in other groups. Combined with the modern trend of women being less accepting of male authority and the added mulishness common to black women, you basically end up with black men having no traditional authority over black women.

3. Charismatic Authority: This is the only real authority left to black men, yet it is limited to the exceptional. It is not an authority bestowed upon those men of good character, sound judgement and solid work ethic, but rather bestowed upon the small minority of men who possess god gifted talent. Thus, you have a handful of black men whose leadership black women will routinely submit to while the overwhelming majority of black men have no leg to stand on with regard to asserting themselves as leaders. As stated before, a leader requires those willing to be led by him/her.

The problem with charismatic authority is that it is value-neutral and doesn't distinguish between moral and immoral charismatic authority. This is why so many black women are willing to submit to being led by skilled and talented pimps, players, drug dealers and criminals. Unlike traditional authority, charismatic authority tends less to relegate authority to men of sound character.

So basically, when women who often resist submitting to male leadership declare than men are supposed to lead, they are actually in essence reaching for a way to not be responsible for their own behavior. They lower themselves temporarily to the level of a child making men/black men responsible for every misstep made by women/black women. Most men would not mind this IF if was consistent and not a case of picking and choosing according to convenience when to be the damsel in distress and when to be the "independent woman". Either let us lead or handle your own business.

Below is a beautiful sista who understands this perfectly:




It is important to note that this dark skinned sista with African features and natural hair is HAPPILY MARRIED to a black man. It's not that brothas are so color-struck. It's that brothas want a positive attitude.

And here is another intelligent and beautiful sista:

Black Women Have The Highest Self-Esteem

It is amazing how wrong the warped perceptions of the IR and Black Woman Empowerment Bloggers are. This is the price they pay for citing their alleged perceptions as facts. One of their errors is the routine claim that due to the (imagined) beating that they take from the black community, black women have low self-esteem and are discontent with their lives. The problem is that research from experts shows the exact opposite. Here are some excerpts:

There Are Differences In Self-esteem Between African-American Caucasian Women Living in the United States.

Self-esteem is an internal belief system about one's self (Wilson 1). Our basic self-esteem develops during childhood to the age of about 12 (Wilson 1). Some variables that can influence one's self-esteem include individual skills, interests, and talents, economic status, community and culture (Wilson 2). African-American women will say positive things about themselves that Caucasian women are not comfortable with saying about themselves (Dent 1).

Rushton found that African-American women have equal or higher self-esteem levels then Caucasians or Latinos (Rushton 9). Gray-Little found that not only African-American adult women have higher self-esteem than Caucasian women but the same is true in children and adolescents (Gray-Little 17). Abba supports the idea that African-American's hold higher self-esteem standings throughout life (Abbas 2). Differences in self-esteem between African-American women and Caucasian's are less during childhood years and grow to adulthood (Twenge 1). Support for this may be that a woman's sense of identity forms throughout her lifespan (Lafromboise 2). Contradicting information states that Caucasians develop self-concepts as a race earlier because the Caucasians having great sociopolitical power which causes less issues to work though during racial identity development (Hill 5).

Caucasian and African-American women hold significantly different views of beauty and perceptions of themselves (Molloy 1). Molloy finds that African-American women have higher self-esteem levels based on body image than Caucasians (Molloy 1). African-American females are less worried about weight, dieting, or being thin (Molloy 1). Sixty-four percent of African-American women said that they'd rather be "a little overweight" than "a little underweight" (Molloy 1). The differences in views may help one understand why eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia is predominantly seen in white women ( Molloy 1). Ossolotch supports this by stating that people with low self-esteem have a greater-risk of developing an eating disorder (Ossolotch 1). Eating disorders are a growing problem with African-American women (Edwards 1). Edwards says this is because of insensitive remarks being made by family members and friends as well as employers making them feel as though they need to lose weight to compete with the Caucasian woman (Edwards 1).

Depression is also found to be more dominant in Caucasian women than African-American women (Abbas 2). Dent supports this by saying that low self-esteem causes greater risks for eating disorders, suicide, and depression (Dent 1). In 2000 the suicide rate for a population of 100,000 was 1.8 for African-American females and 4.3 for Caucasian women (Eshleman 191).

Both Caucasians and African-American women base part of their self-esteem about their bodies on what they think the men of their race prefer (Molloy 1). African-American women tend to believe that African-American men prefer larger women, so they feel less pressure to lose weight then Caucasian women who believe Caucasian men prefer thin women (Molloy 1). Research done on males preferences tended to support these views (Molloy 1). Molloy says that African-American women who predominantly surround themselves with others of their race as apposed to members of the opposite race have higher self-esteem because they are "protected" from Caucasians distorted body image (Molloy 2).

Molloy suggests that gender role also plays a role in women's self-esteem based on their bodies (Molloy 1). African-American women are more likely to see themselves are masculine or androgynous whereas white women see themselves are more feminine (Molloy 1). Women who feel more feminine are more likely to give in to stereotypical views on appearances (Molloy 2).

Socioeconomic status have a more positive affect on Caucasian women as opposed to African-American women (Gray-Little 5). Wilson suggested that African-American women of lower socioeconomic status' were more comfortable with having a heavier body type than higher socioeconomic African-American women (Wilson 2). Contradicting research says that African-American tend to have higher self-esteem levels throughout socioeconomic status ( Abbas 2). Since African-American women are subjected to longstanding socioeconomic inequalities yet still show higher levels of self-esteem suggests that socioeconomic factors do not affect their self-esteem (Abbas 3).

Boisnier did a study on feminism and womanism among Caucasian and African-American women and found that African-American women identify with womanism because it calls for high levels self-esteem (Boisnier 2). Foster and Petty suggest that black organizations and social interaction help raise self-pride and help them identify with their race (Eshleman 190).

So basically, black women not only have higher self-esteem, but have it across all economic levels and black women who live in the black community have higher self-esteem than those who live outside of the black community. Maybe this is why very few are fleeing the "dreaded" black community the way that the IR bloggers want them to. Maybe this is why few are running to the arms of the "white savior". Maybe it is because black women in general, being some of the main architects of the black community, actually are content within the very black community that they helped build.

Wes Moore. The Next Barack Obama?

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Wes Moore

AGE: 30
JOB: Investment banker/former army captain
WHY YOU CARE: Because
the only thing better than one black president is two


Now, it’s
funny. Almost everyone we know seems to know someone they thought was going to
be the first black president. The green-eyed congressman from Memphis, TN. The
well-connected mayor of Newark, NJ. The super-smart, liked-by-all black guy you
went to college with. The founder/publisher of this site. So it’s with healthy
appreciation for his stiff competition that we give you. . .Captain Westley
Moore.

If “Wes,” as he’s known to friends, does not become the second
black president, it’ll only be because he chose not to. His story is no less
inspiring than his credentials are impeccable. In brief: gets kicked out of
school and shipped off to military academy at 12, turns the beat around in under
a decade, graduates Phi Beta Kappa from Hopkins, snags a Rhodes Scholarship to
Oxford, does a tour of duty in Afghanistan, investment banks before winning a
White House Fellowship.

Yeah. We said tour of duty.

Last month,
Moore joined a a panel of veterans in testifying before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on the topic “Soldiers’ Stories From The Afghan War” (see
video below). We suspect accounts like his may have informed Gates’ decision to
remove General McKiernan yesterday — but that’s beside the point. As his Crains
40 Under 40 profile effuses: Moore served “10 months with the Army’s 82nd
Airborne Division in Afghanistan. There, he helped revise a program to win over
Taliban fighters, boosting its enrollment from 6 when he arrived to 500 by the
time he left, and earning a promotion to captain.”

Make that El Capitan.
An up-by-the-bootstraps background, a championship college football career, a
Rhodes Scholarship, a tour of duty, a People’s Hottest Bachelor nod, an Asia
Society fellowship, a White House fellowship — and, oh, did we mention the
Random House book deal? What else does a future president need? Oh, right. A
brilliant wife. Check. In summer 2007, Moore married the stunning Dawn Flythe, a
one-time senior adviser to Maryland’s lieutenant governor. From a distance, you
might mistake Mrs. Moore for a certain Mrs. Carter. From her resume, you might
mistake her for a certain Lady O.

The kicker?

The Moores
couldn’t be kinder. The day Wes won his Rhodes Scholarship, he discovered that
there was another Wes Moore living in Baltimore. This second Wes Moore, also a
black man in his 20s, was headed to prison on a life sentence as Wes Moore #1
headed to Oxford. (Second-black-president) Moore arranged to see his
doppelganger in prison, and has kept in touch with him ever since. Next spring,
Random House will publish Moore’s Elevate: American Journeys into Manhood, a
parallel account of the “two Wes Moores.”

If the first black president
heeds the counsel of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and creates a Council for
men and boys, he’ll undoubtedly turn to Moore, no stranger to the White House
(and an Alpha himself). In the meantime, the Moores are laying plans to use
Elevate to catalyze a movement — answering BHO’s call to community service with
a nationwide campaign. Their idea is to do for youth and service what, say,
Diddy did with youth and voting in 2004.

Of course, those who doubt
Moore’s pure intentions (read: those who envy his stunning accomplishments) say
all this good-doing is merely stage-setting for a political campaign. But you
know how that goes. The Stimulist is not in the business of tearing down young
people trying to build their communities up. And Moore just effuses too much
positivity to inspire anything but good will.

So, to review. Army chops,
political chops, financial chops, a memoir, a wife as brilliant as she is
beautiful. We give you. . .Moore for 2024.

More information on this young man's life.